I live in Japan. I see Japanese people write every day. Just trying to avoid perpetuating the myth that Japanese people can’t write their own language.
They do that bullshit every day, “Oh I don’t know how to write many Kanji. How do you write みぞれ？ Oh yea it’s 霙”
Linguists have been studying Second Language Acquisition for a lot longer and they’re still not 100% on just what works and what doesn’t.
2 Likes
Was this language exchange in Japan?
Cool. 
For me it’s not a myth. Maybe I’m not lucky enough or I happen to meet people who are similarly educated. Whatever
Nope. In Spain. A pretty popular destination for a lot of young people, seems like.
I know what works… FOR ME.
1 Like
It sounds like you’re equating “they occasionally stop to think” with “they can only write a few kanji from memory”. It’s just not the case, that a functioning adult can get by with few kanji.
But whatever.
Or you are just unaware. You can’t know what you don’t know.
horusscope. I don’t really understand, you mix extremely informal with formal stuff.
頑張れってだとういうな → 頑張れってだというな
読んでテヨンでと中に込んだ → テヨン？
まさかなにかなんだ！？ ← … too informal to understand.What do you mean? Thanks!
I found one of the biggest barriers for anyone to learn a language is being afraid to make mistakes
That’s why I’m playful and poetic while I’m learning and speaking
I mimic television characters, and even make up archetypical characters to play as myself
I’ll make mixed sounds and sentences out of sentences I actually heard that are common
I’ll take similar sounding words and slur them together
I make it fun enough that I actually learn something
Haha! Ok. Still don’t understand. But it’s fine.
I’m not affraid of using anything I’ve heard… but since some japanese people (older and younger) and two teachers told me it sounds terrible speaking like in animes, and nobody speaks like that (which was my main source of japanese at that time) I started using more formal expressions and other stuff I heard from people or doramas. Looks like they don’t like it that much… They used to laugh at a friend who spoke a mix of street language with yakuza language, and very formal language too.
Reminds me of the time when I was studying arabic and the classic / standard arabic is only spoken in formal tv shows. So when I used to speak with people in the street they looked at me amazed, like speaking in ancient english or something like that. It sounded great to them, but then they answered… haha.
1 Like
oh ok well, you’ll find if you write or read in nihongo on the interwebs, some random things are written in katakana just to visually distinguish them, like ホントに
I was speaking nonsense, although て読ん in kata shouldn’t be
だけでもあそび、わたしに
ホントにいってきますのだ；）ｗｗ
まちがいのまちなほうがいい、。。。と、おもうよ。
It’s HonTOU, by the way.
Yeah. I read a lot of manga, I know that… Have fun!
See “other forms”.
3 Likes
Recently watched a video where they asked Japanese people to write some kanji. Turns out, at least with less common ones, they do sometimes forget how to write them
2 Likes
I don’t think anyone is claiming that all Japanese people can pass Kanken level 1 or something. It’s a question of the degree to which they can write. And “they don’t know many kanji” is pretty far from the truth.
Yeah, I never trust those kind of videos. Of course they will show mostly the people that failed to write something correct even if they had to ask 10000 before finding someone making a mistake. So I demand some proper statistics with these videos ;D
And to be fair if I picked a random english word and asked 100 native speakers to spell it, I’m sure there would be somebody writing it wrong and of course that would be the one pointed out during a broadcast…
Especially since they pick less common ones too 
If we did the same in English, purposely pick hard and little used words, we will find people who spell them wrong.
We could even do common words that people often misspell, there are enough of those
I’ve heard a myth that English people can’t spell their own language also, simply cause there are some words that are commonly misspelled and some people who are bad in general. Though there are some truth in it, it’s far from right to say most people can’t write. (and I almost ended up saying there are some trout in it, lol!! )
2 Likes
I highly doubt that this Youtuber went around asking 10000 people just to find someone spelling it wrong. But sure, actual statistics would be better.
Regarding English words, there is still a pretty big difference. If someone told me a random English word I’ve never written or even heard before, in 90% of cases I could still write it fine, barring irregular spellings, where I could still write a close approximation of the word. On the other hand hearing a random Japanese word I don’t know, there is no way I could just guess how its Kanji looks. I’d also say that it’s natural people will forget how to write a Kanji, if they haven’t written it since highschool, for example. It’s only Human.
You will eventually forget them. I recommend using the TangoRisto app (iOS, don’t know about android.) for reading once you get to lvl 20 or 30. It has easy and difficult sources that it draws from to give you reading practice.
3 Likes
This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.